THE MAN AND THE MONSTER – Written by Henry M. Milner, this stage adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein differs significantly from her novel and was first performed on July 3rd, 1826 at the Royal Cobourg Theatre.
The full title of this play is Frankenstein; or The Man and the Monster, a Melodrama in Two Acts. At least one other stage adaptation in 1823 preceded Milner’s version of the story. Milner’s play can be read in its entirety online.
In honor of Rome: Italian Style on SCTV I like to think of this work as Frankenstein: Italian Style since it is set in Sicily, apparently only so that Mt. Aetna can figure in the play’s finale. Rather than laboring in his own castle, Dr. Frankenstein lives and works in Sicily under the auspices of the Prince del Piombino.
The prince is a great patron of arts and sciences, and he finances Frankenstein’s work. In turn, the doctor tutors the prince’s son Julio (Julio?). Continue reading
UTOPIA or THE HISTORY OF AN EXTINCT PLANET, PSYCHOMETRICALLY OBTAINED (1884) – Written by Alfred Denton Cridge. An unnamed narrator comes across the remains of a meteor that entered Earth’s atmosphere. This narrator has the gift of psychometry (the author’s uncle was THE William Denton) and after he picks up the tangerine-sized chunk of black rock from another planet he begins getting impressions from it. 
The planet was just 2,500 miles across and was home to a race of roughly 5 1/2 feet tall humanoids, some with yellow skin, some with brown skin and others with gray skin. All the races had long, black hair. Utopia sported Earthlike plains, mountains, lakes and rivers with just one huge ocean. 
THE LUNARIAN PROFESSOR AND HIS REMARKABLE REVELATIONS CONCERNING THE EARTH, THE MOON AND MARS TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE CRUISE OF THE SALLY ANN (1909) – Written by James B Alexander back in the glory days of titles so long they might not fit in a 140 character limit. 
THE NEW HUMANS (1909) – Written by B Vallance. No other name has come to light for the author of this thought-provoking work. Explorer Montgomery Merrick is roaming around the wilds of 1909 Uganda when he falls down a mountainside and into a concealed valley. 
BEYOND THE ETHER (1898) – Written by W. Cairns Johnston. This little honey is so jam-packed with enjoyable weirdness that it’s sort of like “If Ed Wood wrote Steampunk.” 
A JOURNEY IN THE TWENTY-NINTH CENTURY (1824) – Written by Faddei Bulgarin, who had served in the Polish Legion of Napoleon’s Grand Army in his youth before going on to work for the Czars of Russia. In this fascinating tale an unnamed narrator gets swept overboard in the Gulf of Finland in 1824. The cold water and another element somehow put him in suspended animation and when he comes to he is all the way over in Siberia, where his body was recovered in the waters of Cape Shelagski centuries after he was lost at sea.
FUNGUS ISLE (1923) – Written by Philip M Fisher. Fungus Isle has the same proto-Creature Feature feel to it that The True Inheritors (qv) had. In the case of the previously reviewed story, it was a forerunner of various giant spider flicks. 
THE SHIP OF SILENT MEN (1920) – Written by Philip M Fisher. The crew of a ship called the Lanoa set out from Hawaii. A few days later an abnormally powerful electrical storm strikes, leaving the area unusually cold in its wake.
THE Nth MAN (1920 – 1924?) – Written by Homer Eon Flint, who died in 1924. Though this short novel was not published until 1928 many fans of the author argue that it was actually written in 1920. 
THE WAR UNDER THE SEA (1892) – Written by Georges Le Faure. This sci-fi work was intended as an escapist societal salve to a French public still smarting from their loss to Germanic forces during the Franco-Prussian War just over two decades earlier. 
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